Lost Time
by michael1812
Summary: An epilogue scene for 'Jeremiah Crichton'. John returns to Moya after three months alone and Aeryn visits him, still upset about the last words he spoke to her before he was abandoned accidentally. They try to make up for lost time.


John was shaving off the beard he had been growing for months now.

He leaned closer to the mirror to analyze his own face.

His hand swirled from one cheek to the other elegantly as he held the small razor blade in his hands.

Then he cautiously pressed the sharp knife against his skin, into the white goo, and he accurately cut the hairs by moving the knife down smoothly and slowly.

He cleaned the razor of the white goo, the alien substitute for shaving cream, in the golden water basin, before he looked in the mirror again and laughed as he saw the effectiveness of the small razor on his almost finished, clean and keenly shaven face.

He was nearly done and continued to shave his moustache when Aeryn slowly entered his doorway.

"John?" she asked.

John startled and cut himself; his razor coloured red and so did the cream upon his face.

"Damnit!" he cursed when he felt the sting on his face.

The curse slipped from his mouth, but he quickly refrained himself.

John looked into the mirror and touched the tiny cut on his face which smudged his face in thin blood, tainting the white goo red, then his eyes refocused as he gazed across his shoulder and saw Aeryn standing in the doorway.

"I'm sorry," Aeryn said as she saw the damage she had caused, just by entering.

John turned around with a slight smile on his face as he unintentionally showed his red chin and hand to her.

Red drops touched his white shirt.

"I didn't mean to…" Aeryn said, shaking her head, but she didn't finish her sentence.

"It doesn't matter," John said, shaking his hand to rid himself of the blood.

"I'm fine. Don't worry about it."

Blood drops fell to the floor with every shake of his hand.

He turned to the mirror again to examine his wound.

Aeryn's left eye seemed to twitch slightly as it narrowed as she smiled at the same time.

"What I meant to say was," she spoke. "I didn't mean to startle you."

John narrowed his eyes as he looked over his own shoulders via the mirror.

"You didn't." he said. "You just have a terrible sense of timing."

He bend over to clean the razor under the small tap; drops of blood flowed across its small, metal surface and merged into the water of the basin, disappearing into nothing.

John was left with half a beard, smudged in white alien goo, and a white towel on the shoulder of his white sleeveless shirt.

"You're clearly busy," Aeryn said. "I'll come back later when you're done."

"No, no, no, no…" John said. "Come on!"

Aeryn almost turned around.

"I haven't seen you in three months, Aeryn." John added. "Please, come in."

Aeryn hesitated slightly before she entered.

She felt uncomfortable in the presence of Crichton and his wet face.

It had been so long since they last saw each other, but still Aeryn remembered the last words he spoke to her.

"It's so weird being back," John said as he washed up, cleaning his face with water from the basin and finishing off with the white towel to dry his face.

He glanced around at Moya's bulkheads and structures; the breathing walls and golden, metal components.

"It's almost like it never happened." John added.

He seemed to innocent and solemn, but not as erratic and afraid as Aeryn remembered him to be.

The time he spent on that planet had changed him, calmed him down.

He was at peace.

"We didn't mean to abandon you, Crichton," Aeryn spoke.

She felt uncomfortable standing there with nothing in her hands in Crichton's presence.

He turned his head and smiled at her, before he glanced at the floor.

"I know," he said. "D'Argo told me what happened."

He placed the towel on a handle beside the basin, but he was still massaging his hands strangely.

Aeryn narrowed her eyes again, examining Crichton's weird attitude as she hesitantly tried to be closer.

"So you're not angry?" Aeryn said.

"No," John said, turning to face Aeryn. "Why would I be?"

"You were left on your own, with nothing to help you. Nothing."

Aeryn continued as she looked into Crichton's eyes.

She couldn't stand that he was being so easy about it all.

"You could've died, Crichton," she said. "Don't you realise that? You were lucky enough to find that planet in the first place!"

"Oh, I'm lucky all right," John said joking, grabbing his grey IASA jacket from the back of the chair where he left it. "I'm the luckiest guy in the galaxy."

Aeryn wasn't comforted.

"Look, anything could have happened to me." John went on. "Anything. I mean, I could have been captured or killed, locked up, enslaved, beaten or bent! Anything could have happened! But you know what? It didn't."

He looked Aeryn straight in the eyes.

"All I knew was that I was totally and completely lost," John said. "And in that respect, nothing had changed at all."

Aeryn couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Nothing?" she said softly, but snappy.

John bit his lip.

"No, not nothing," he said, and Aeryn gazed into his eyes.

"I was all by myself. And I was lucky, very lucky. And I'm glad I found that planet. I'm glad I was left on my own. It gave me the chance to work things out. Get back to my senses and get a little perspective. You know?"

"So you're happy we abandoned you?" Aeryn asked confused.

John glanced upwards at the ceiling, looking for the right words to say to her.

"That place was beautiful, Aeryn," he said. "It was paradise, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

Aeryn smiled in disbelief, finding Crichton's words vaguely amusing (hearing what Rygel and D'Argo had to say about that backwater of a planet).

"Crichton…" Aeryn said, still not understanding.

"Another day, another lesson…" John said. "I have to keep learning, in order to survive."

John smiled, and Aeryn couldn't help but smile as well at the weird human, even though she tried hard not to.

"So you're not stupid after all," Aeryn said.

John laughed soundlessly, showing off his teeth as his eyes twinkled subtly.

"You don't have to worry about me, babe," he said, folding up his grey jacket over his arm as he turned around to leave the room. "I can take care of myself!"

John walked out of the room in a slow pace, slapping his jacket across his shoulder as he strode into the corridor.

Aeryn folded her arms together.

She couldn't believe she was actually thinking this, but she was glad he was back.


End file.
